Meet Skip – The Workplace Communication Expert

Skip Works with Small Business Leaders to Communicate to Motivate

At the age of seven, Skip walked hand-in-hand with his dad on Father’s Day across the Shea Stadium (former home of the New York Mets) parking lot into his first Major League Baseball game, and he was hooked.

From that day it became Skip’s dream to be a Major League ballplayer. That dream was cut short by a lack of athletic talent, but his focus and determination led to a 20-year professional baseball career leading teams from the front office.

Fifteen years after his first New York Mets game Skip walked into his first job in professional baseball, and four years later, at the age of just 26 Skip was promoted to CEO of his first franchise.

As a young professional baseball executive Skip made every leadership and workplace communication mistake in the book.

Those hard learned on-the-job small business leadership and workplace communication lessons have become the foundation of Skip’s signature talk topics you’ll read about below, and the strategies he works with today’s small business leaders to create championship caliber company performance.

Having achieved all desired professional baseball career ambition Skip decided, after 20 seasons to step down for lifestyle choices. He has since devoted his second career to fulfilling his new professional dream and business purpose “to create inspiring work environments so people can enjoy life!”

Some facts about me:

I have much less hair than I did in my early baseball leadership days.

Achieved my childhood dream of working in professional baseball (although my original dream was to be on the field, not in management).

Spent 20-years going to a ballpark every day to earn a living (it doesn’t get any better than that).

Have spoken to more than 20,000 business professionals at more than 100 professional business conferences and events since 2012.

95% of audience members say they want to attend another session of mine after experiencing me the first time.

“Our team was so energized by the work session you facilitated it has propelled them to a new level of productivity. First quarter for our company is traditionally slow, but this year we have kicked off the new year with a bang!

It’s Always About “Communication”

It’s long been said that communication is the key to leadership. Yet, “communication” is rarely defined so organizational leaders can build skills to develop habits to communicate to motivate.

My job is easy. You see there is NO success, problem, frustration, issue, challenge or failure that cannot be directly related to some aspect of communication. Communication often becomes the generic cause of everything that goes wrong, yet rarely is specifically defined to fix the problem.

“When I first came to you and said, ‘I have a problem and don’t know what it is.’ You said that sounds like a communication problem. And, that’s exactly what it turned out to be. You know you’re stuff!”

My job is also easy because my role is to work with small business owners and their employees create their desired, ideal work environment. It’s amazing, everyone in the company knows what it is, yet, it lies dormant due to the collective communication habits of those in the work environment who don’t know how to get out of the communication conundrum.

But, they always know what they want their work environment to be like. So we focus on that. The past attitudes, behaviors, problems and issues are discussed only in the context of the alternative desired attitudes and behaviors necessary to create the new ideal work environment moving forward.

It’s an energizing, engaging and positive conversation everyone in the work environment contributes to creating, thus they have an interest in maintaining.

Listen, Learn & Implement

One hundred percent of Skip’s Championship Caliber Company consulting clients have come directly from experiencing one of his speaking presentations. But, you don’t need to wait if you need to learn how to communicate to motivate, let’s talk. Schedule a time that fits your schedule here.

Meeting planners are encouraged to know that audience members continue to say his keynotes and seminars balance “practicality with inspiration” making it believable for audiences to take back his championship caliber workplace communication strategies to their own work environment to create more positive, more productive and even more profitable companies.

The Society for Human Resource Management, the Project Management Institute, the IT Service Management, engineering associations, chambers of commerce, small business advocacy associations regularly book Skip for their events as both a keynote speaker, general session seminars and breakout session programs.

See Skip in Action & Audience Reaction in Demo Video

(Click anywhere on image to play)

Event Planner: Partial Client List:

Your peers and colleagues love that speaking engagements are energizing, engaging, and entertaining that always feature a variety of short, pithy, interactive activities and include personal, authentic stories that reflect on teachable moments from Skip’s 20-year professional baseball leadership career.

This is why 95% audience members say they would want to attend another of Skip’s presentations at another event.

So, if you have a corporate meeting or an association conference that would benefit from “practicality & inspiration” to motivate business leaders and employees alike, let’s talk. Schedule a time that fits your schedule here.

KEYNOTE 1

Mastering the 3 Levels of Communication Influence: How the Best Leaders Become the Best Leaders

This presentation is a spinoff from Skip’s seminal work on The 7 Deadliest Workplace Communication Sins and leads audience members through the only three specific development contexts they need to focus to transform their communication skills to lead their small business teams.

The best leaders are masters of communication and everyone can and should be a leader in the practice. The right application of communication skills in these three levels allows team members to realize that leadership is not a job description but a mindset and approach to their role. Mastery of communication allows people to exert positive influence, yet, too many medical practice personnel take communication for granted, limiting their ability to contribute at high levels and feel like they are making a difference.

Session attendees will learn that 100% of their communication needs fit within these three levels of communication influence and how one (or more) of the three levels are always at play. Understanding these levels of communication influence is vital to creating a high-performing medical practice team.

Session attendees will explore all three levels, learn the specific components in each, and be challenged
to assess their needs, comfort, and capabilities to identify and commit to specific areas for growth.

Inspirational with personal stories from Skip’s 20-year baseball management career, instructional with content outlining the specific components of each leadership communication level, and challenging with a personal self-assessment, this interactive, content-rich keynote is an engaging experience for any audience. Small business owners, human resource professionals, project managers, IT service management team leaders, partners in CPA & engineering firms have all raised their communication capabilities.

“Skip, your session was my favorite at this year’s Nebraska State SHRM Conference!”

KEYNOTE 2

Touching the 4 Bases for Championship Results in Business & Life: Grand Slam Lessons from a 20-year Professional Baseball Career

This interactive, engaging and dynamic keynote provides four fundamental strategies most overlooked, misunderstood, and even avoided, that are necessary to drive greater business results, be an even better happier employee, and to build a successful, long-term career.

Session attendees will explore these four strategies through anecdotal stories from Skip’s 20-year baseball career, as well as be challenged to look at how they can be applied directly to how the business leader is leading themselves and their company, and how employees can be apply the strategies to take control of their role within the company, and their career and future roles.

BREAKOUT SESSION SEMINAR 1

The 7 Deadliest Workplace Communication Sins: How Poor Communication Is Killing Company Profits in Small Business

Recent research has shown that the average employee wastes a minimum of 40-minutes per day due to ineffective communication at a cost of $5220 per employee per year in lost productivity.

To help small business leaders begin to reduce that financial impact of ineffective communication in their workplace, this interactive, engaging and entertaining session introduces the seven biggest communication mistakes taking place in workplaces everyday.

These communication mistakes are the most common communication habits engaged in by the leaders of the largest Fortune 500 corporations, as well as the small business owner, workplace managers, project managers (with PMP certifications) and employees that cause most of the confusion, misunderstandings, and conflicts that limit productivity in today’s work environments.

In this program participants will easily be able to recognize and resonate with all seven communication sins, be able to identify specific ways they manifest and simple ways to turn around these negative and limiting communication habits.

Your audience will learn:

Discover the only 3 outcomes that can result from any communication and why two of them are to be avoided at all costs.

Learn the real dollars and cents cost of these communication mistakes to productivity and profits.

Explore the 7 most common and damaging interpersonal communication mistakes.

Examine the 3 key reasons these communication mistakes occur.

Calculate the cost of ineffective communication at their company.

Simple strategies for overcoming these damaging communication mistakes and building new habits of communicating.

BREAKOUT SESSION SEMINAR 2

The 4 Workplace Conversations: Why 75% Of Conversations in Your Workplace Are Wrong & How To Change It

There are only four possible conversations that can possibly occur in any workplace during the course of a workday. Unfortunately, three of those four are unproductive and could be detrimental to a positive, productive and profitable work environment.

This unique look at the dynamics of communication in the workplace and between co-workers, managers and company leaders, gives participants insight into how they are communicating, with whom and when, while providing specific tools to help move every conversation to become the “right” conversation.

Your audience will learn:

The #1 communication issue preventing better workplace performance.

The four different types of conversations taking place on in the workplace today.

Why 75% of them are the “wrong” conversation.

The #1 reason people continue to have the “wrong” conversations.

The 1 “right” conversation that people all the time, every time, every day.

“At our fall conference Skip received the highest reviews of all six speakers, so we brought him back to keynote our spring professional development day. It was the highest attended spring professional development day we’ve ever had and it got great reviews!”